


Heaven's Conservatory

by abyss1826



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And I intend to make my religion teacher proud, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Conflict Resolution, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, In which a raised athiest puts her Catholic hs education to good use, Mother-Son Relationship, Post canon, Post-Apocalypse, The essay about God's character in Good Omens relative to biblical study is implied, fluff with plot, mostly comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-07-23 13:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20009092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyss1826/pseuds/abyss1826
Summary: In which God does many unexpected things, because that's what God does, sometimes.





	1. Long Overdue

The bell of the shop door tinged, a relatively unwelcome sound to Crowley’s ears when not combined with his Angel’s voice of greeting. The demon huffed a sigh and set down his watering can with a bit more force than required.

“And who did you invite, hm?” he muttered to his fern, “Trying to get someone else to mist you?” 

He slinked out of the kitchen, where Aziraphale had insisted he put his plants while they waited for things to blow over, and rounded into the shop proper with a glare sure to wither the determination of any customers, no matter how stubborn. But no determined customers met his gaze. Their luck was rotten, naturally, he thought as his stomach settled into the pit of resignation. The moment Aziraphale popped out for an interesting estate sale with Crowley insisting he could handle the bookstore alone, Hastur reared his vengeful head. 

“Didn’t take you much as one to read, Hastur,” he chirped before the maggot could say anything, “what business do you have in a bookstore?” Rather than replying as Crowley expected, Hastur lunged. Crowley didn't back away in time.

With a foul smelling crack they landed on the floor of Hastur's office, a place Crowley liked to avoid nearly as much as the demon who inhabited it. On the way down the back of his head slammed the edge of the metal desk, giving Hastur the upper hand as he blinked away stars. He tried to wiggle away but his boss was unfortunately wise to his tricks, and, rather than hold him down by his arms, the demon clamped his hand around Crowley's neck.

"You've caused me a lot of trouble down here," Hastur growled. Crowley would respond, but words are difficult to make when one's trachea being thoroughly crushed into their spinal column. Hastur continued to lament about what has happened since the failed apocalypse, but another noise distracted Crowley's ears. A sharp, repetitive vibration through the floor, and a warm buzzing in the back of his head that he doubted was from its recent collisions.

The door creaked open and he was met with a pair of deep yellow stilettos and the sound of an even deeper voice.

"What is it you think you're doing, Hastur?" 

The demon froze, dumbfounded, until manicured but ever soil-encrusted nails took him by the collar and lifted him into the air.

"H-how are you-" Hastur sputtered as Crowley rolled over wheezing.

"Ah-ah-ah, questions do not get answered by questions," She tutted, turning and setting him down. "Really, Hastur, I didn't make you yesterday."

Instead of answering Hastur took his chances and bolted down the hallway yelling something about security. Crowley scrambled to his feet and knocked a pile of manilla folders to the floor as God watched the demon run from her with a look of mild disdain. 

He wasn't sure what his emotions were, seeing her again. He felt light headed and perhaps a bit weaker due to her Holiness, but those weren't emotions. He decided not to dwell on those, and take in facts instead.

God was in Hell, for some reason. She wore a leaf green pinstripe suit with a dress shirt to match her shoes, and her tightly coiled hair was tied slightly back with stylishly patterned red fabric. She turned her golden eyes on him and he wished he could bolt just as Hastur had. He fixed his glasses instead.

"Hello Crowley." Her voice was soft and sweet, as if she was showing him the emptiness and asking him what he wanted to create.

"Hello Mother." 

She opened her mouth to say something else but closed it again with a frown. Roughly a dozen demons ran into the hallway outside of the office and froze at the sight of God. She stared at them over her shoulder before returning her gaze to Crowley and kicking the door closed behind her with her heel. 

“I’m not sure what he expected  _ them _ to do about me being here, but oh well.” The ground began to rumble, causing her to yell over it. “I have some long overdue business-” she got out, before Lucifer interrupted her with a disembodied voice.

“ **Yahweh, what are you doing here in** **_My Domain_ ** **?!”**

God sent a withering glare his direction, and Crowley was certain Lucifer would feel it regardless of the distance. 

“I created this place as I did all others,” she stated with a chilling calmness, “peg yourself lucky that I don’t make you pay  _ rent _ .” 

Hell shook angrily. She rolled her eyes and held her hand out to Crowley as he stabilized himself on the desk. 

“I don’t have time for your brother’s dramatics. Let’s talk somewhere else.” Not keen on finding out what would happen if he didn't, Crowley took her hand.

After another bout of transportation that left him feeling vaguely ill, Crowley found himself at a large bay window left open to the heat and noise of an old city street. He could see ferns growing out of worn down brick buildings, and hear about five Jazz bands playing at different parties outdoors.

"New Orleans?"

"For now." She sensed Crowley's misunderstanding and continued. "I don't stay in one city long."

"Ah. Where to next?" He asked idly, trying to maintain his facade in front of God, of all beings.

"I was thinking Las Vegas." The demon frowned, finally looking back at her.

"The City of Sin?" 

She shrugged, her old eyes giving him a knowing look.

"Sometimes it's the sinners who have the most faith."

Crowley looked back out the window, silently grateful for it's distractions. He thought he saw a golden eye shimmer into his periferal. When he turned his head it was gone. 

“You’ve done well, dear,” She said finally.

“Interesting thing to say to a  _ demon _ , mother.”

The air rustled. If he had looked closer, he would have seen how her canopy of wings watched him. 

“But you’ve never been a very good demon, have you?” He bristled, his scales crawling up his back beneath his shirt. “Too full of love, even after what I did to you.”

Crowley huffed a small laugh through his nose.

“What, you regret it?” he chuckled mirthlessly.

“Yes,” she admitted, “I do.”

It was the first time anyone had heard sorrow in the voice of God.


	2. Chapter 2

God had two major regrets: Flooding the Earth, and roping Crowley in with those who disobeyed her.

The flood she had regretted quickly. It had been a waste. But She had been angry and disappointed. She did to humans what she had done to her first children.

But there were humans who had not deserved that fate.

And there was an angel who had not deserved to fall.

Wrath was something she tried to set aside, after the flood. No more decisions made in anger.

Her pride did not get that sort of treatment until sometime during the 1800's. She had known long before that that Crowley had never been the same as the others she had cast out, but it wasn't until then she admitted she had made a mistake.

Unfortunately by then he was  _ needed _ in Hell, or else it was possible things wouldn't pan out quite as well as She hoped.

But now that the world had finally not ended, everything was to be put to mend.

"I was wrong to have cast you out. It is my every intention to return you home." Crowley's breath hitched. "You would be an angel again. You could look as you once did, go by your old name if you wish, though you don't need to."

Crowley nodded, more to himself, as he still faced the window.

"Do you need time to think about it?"

He stammered quite a bit but eventually the words he wanted came through.

"Well, no, no, it's just that Aziraphale and I have been pretty adamant about being our own side, is all, I'd rather not complicate things by making Heaven think they can lay claim to me all a sudden…." He finally turned around to see a frighteningly displeased expression on her face.

"Heaven will be dealing with too much to even spare a glance your way, I assure you."

"...Oh?" The demon squeaked.

"Shameless, the lot of them. No one seems to remember what I said about no more ending the world after I flooded things, clearly!" She threw up a number of her appendages, feathers falling from the ceiling. "But no, surely Mother wants us to destroy the humanity she told us to love over a petty squabble with Hell!" She dragged a hand down her face and peaked at the demon, who didn't quite seem to be following her, between her fingers.

"Lucifer did put in a genuine effort but it was never meant to happen anyway. It was all just a test, and the only angel who passed it was yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes. The only angel in all of creation who actually loves and protects humans. That's what the plan was."

"Oh." That was going to take a while to process. "What now?"

"I'll yell at them for a while, I suppose…. I have a side project in mind for you but that's for me, not Heaven; if you accept this."

He tried very hard not to cry as she approached him with her arms open. All he could do was nod.

  
  


It was a strange thing to realize he was no longer in pain. The injuries one gets from falling never heal right, they aren't meant to. Your wings always feel broken in some way, your being always scorched and tight, but those are pains that fade into the back of your mind after a few thousand years or so. There were some additional issues with certain limbs he wasn't supposed to have after the garden as well, but such was being a snake in human form.

He had dealt with it all.

But that wasn't necessary anymore.

It wasn’t gone all at once as much is it was soothed, slowly, in a cocoon of wings and warm light. Grace was cooling against invisible sulfuric burns, and distantly Crowley wondered if this was how aloe had felt to Warlock that evening after they had gone to the beach.

He could tell it was over, She was done, but he didn’t want to let go. He wasn’t sure what he would do after he did. 6,000 years of being a general nuisance wouldn’t just… go away, would they? He still felt like himself. Mostly. His connection to Hell was gone, and he could tell his general energy had changed to become a bit more positive, but he was still just… him.

Maybe Falling had never changed him after all.

God shifted and he had to resist the fearful urge to cling tighter. All she did was rest her chin atop his head.

“Your angel’s looking for you.”

“Mm?”

“He seems awfully afraid.”

Crowley let go and spun over to the window, where he could see Aziraphale pacing back and forth in the street fretting with a map. Crowley stuck his head out of the window and called to him, but it still took a moment for Aziraphale to notice him. Such was the nature of God's flat.

"Crowley?! Good Heavens are you alright?"

“Better than ever, Angel!”

Before anything else could be said, the entity glowed, dematerialized, and popped back into existence inside looking rather startled. The principality looking himself up and down, stared at Crowley whose aura had changed completely, and then spun around only to smack part of his form into one of God's wings. She laughed with many mouths, though the shape she had taken in hell was unchanged. The angel sputtered his way through various centuries-worth of titles out of pure shock before she had a chance to cut him off.

"-No need to be so anxious, little one, no one is in trouble. Quite the opposite, really."

Crowley, who was feeling brave in a way he would bashfully regret later, embraced Aziraphale from behind and spun them both around with gleeful hissy giggles.

"Mother restored my Grace," he informed. Aziraphale looked over his shoulder, the tip of his nose bumping the former demon's cheek, his mouth agape.

"Is that- oh goodness I thought- you got whisked off to hell and then here and then I couldn't feel your energy at all! I- I thought…." He put his hands over Crowley's and looked down at the floor.

It was overwhelming. It was nothing but the other side of the coin but it was all so, so much. Crowley hid his face in Aziraphale's shoulder to hide that he was crying, his sunglasses pushing red lines up his forehead. He felt stupid for never being sure until he could practically  _ see _ the angels love rolling off of him, but demons weren't meant to be loved, could only feel a being's sinful emotions, and Aziraphale had always been complicated.

"Well… you're quite alright now, then, aren't you?" Aziraphale chuckled, leaning his cheek against Crowley's head.

"Yes. I most definitely am."

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment, it really motivates me to keep writing.  
> You are also welcome to reach me at my writing side blog smallest-letters on tumblr!


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